h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Chocolate Mole - A23883753
Author: Happy_Nerd - U8584330

For those who do not wish to wait for dessert to have chocolate, here is my chocolate mole recipe, with some historical and usage notes. Enjoy.

Hello, Happy-Nerd and welcome to PR

This is a very good first entry for a newbie well done!

Here are some nitpicks for you to address:

Please remove the centred heading at the top. It is not required.

Please seek out and eliminate 'americanisms' like 'ize' (replace with 'ise') and 'or' (replace with 'our'), eg in savor >> savour

Chile is spelled chilli here

Can you convert your quarts to metric measurements? You can use both if you like.

Can you suggest alternatives for chipotle, Guijillo, pasilla/ancho and NM chilli? and it would be good to explain what the differences are. you could add a parapah on chillis and briefly explain how they differ.

piloncillo is called molasses sugar here (UK)

What is TBS spice? If it is a tablespoon then change to tbspn, please.

Capsaisin >>> capsaicin

How is 'mole' pronounced?

I would also suggest you try to incorporate come of your footnotes into the text of your entry. One way to do this is to have a paragraph explaining the ingredients (you could explain chillis in here too) and one explaining the equipment and another for method. They need not be huge paragraphs.

it would also be great to have some cultural references tot he food: when where and why is it served? How did it begin? Is it a national dish?...

It seems like a lot to do, take your time and please let us know what you are changing. You don't have to do everything we ask, but it would be nice to let us know why you don't.


Wilma

Well I clearly wasn't paying as much attention as Wilma, but I liked this entry. I still do, of course. Just two suggestions.

1) Could you explain precisely what 'char' means?

2) Can you make sure your footnotes have fullstops? That isn't really a suggestion, you need to do that.

Otherwise, just do what Wilma says. She gets violent.

I do not!

Ow!

Oh, and Happy_Nerd?
One other thing is a little tweak necessary in your links:

chile peppers

makes an h2g2 link look like an external link, please change them all to:

chile peppers


Wilma

Hi Happy-Nerd!

Here's my critique, and it ain't "suggestions".



*reads entry*

Um... It's a great entry. A few nit-picky grammatical things, but I'll wait until you've tackled the big stuff mentioned above first.

Wilma, so nice to talk with you, I've been reading your writings, also the reference on Neanderthals.

Typo on capsaicin - fixed. Centered heading - deleted.

On the "ou" and the "ise" spellings, I mis-spent my youth reading P.G. Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Douglas Adams, and now you're telling me I still can't spell? Yes, I'll get to these and the links.

On the converting English measures to metric, okay I'll do it, but you realize we got these darned things from you guys in the first place. Americans would have been perfectly happy tossing in handfuls of ingredients.

I'll address the other points you raised, but these are points of clarification. When you go to a market on your side of the Atlantic, which peppers can you find? Are they dried, canned, fresh? I can look into uploading photos of the peppers, maybe that would be helpful.

On the chile-chili-chilli thing, native Spanish speakers use "chile" to refer to the pepper. American English speakers, or at least the ones who can spell, use "chile" to refer to the pepper, and "chili" to refer to the spicy stew that is part of Tex-Mex and not Mexican cuisine. British English speakers use "chilli" to refer both to the pepper and to the stew, is that right? Or are you all smart enough to stay away from anything served by a guy wearing a Stetson and Tony Lamas?

Happy_Nerd

Chile = country.
Chilli = pepper
Chilli con carne = minced meat, tomato sauce, vegetables, kidney beans, chilli peppers or powder.
Those are the only uses of 'chilli' I know of. I may however be ignorant.

Happy_Nerd, the points I raised about the spellings and link tags are in the Writing Guidelines here: A53209

You'll a few other things in there that we haven't got 'round to yet

I'll address the other points you raised, but these are points of clarification. When you go to a market on your side of the Atlantic, which peppers can you find? Are they dried, canned, fresh? I can look into uploading photos of the peppers, maybe that would be helpful.

London is a large cosmopolitan city so we can find pretty much anything and everything if we look hard enough. Having said that, when you mention specific peppers or canned foods it gets complicated because things are called something different here. Where in North America, it is the Latin and South American cultures that provide the culinary colour and variety, here we look more to Asia and Africa. So stuff may be called something different (cilantro/coriander...)

As h2g2 is UK and BBC based site, we are asked to follow the UKian way of saying (and spelling stuff)

hit post too soon... Thank you for your comments on my writing, Happy_Nerd. I like the way you write too

Oh, and I don't take nuthin from no Texan

Since h2g2 is also supported and read by people around the world, paranthetical explanation or footnotes regarding significant differences are always appreciated.

You forgot Leo.

Yeah, and what Leo said...

And nobody was at all worried?!

Sorry Leo

'anth. Good fwavor too.

Yes, we use upper-case "Chile" for the country, lower-case "chile" for the pepper. Even in this hemisphere there are some chile-chili reversals. However, I can assure you if I pronounce chile (the pepper) as chili (the stew) around here, I get some mighty strange looks from folks who speak Spanish better than I do.

However, the orginal Nahuatl (Aztec) word was actually closer to your word "chilli" and was changed to "chile" by the Spanish. Plus, the recipe sits on BBC servers, so "chilli" it will be. Soon. When I get back. I promise.

Happy_Nerd

Oh yes, no doubt, when in Rome and all that.